CHAPTER V
THE COLD OF SPACE
This revelation came like a thunderbolt. Who could haveexpected such an error in calculation? Barbicane would notbelieve it. Nicholl revised his figures: they were exact.As to the formula which had determined them, they could notsuspect its truth; it was evident that an initiatory velocity ofseventeen thousand yards in the first second was necessary toenable them to reach the neutral point.
The three friends looked at each other silently. There was nothought of breakfast. Barbicane, with clenched teeth, knittedbrows, and hands clasped convulsively, was watching throughthe window. Nicholl had crossed his arms, and was examininghis calculations. Michel Ardan was muttering:
"That is just like these scientific men: they never do anything else.I would give twenty pistoles if we could fall upon the CambridgeObservatory and crush it, together with the whole lot of dabblersin figures which it contains."
Suddenly a thought struck the captain, which he at oncecommunicated to Barbicane.
"Ah!" said he; "it is seven o'clock in the morning; we havealready been gone thirty-two hours; more than half our passageis over, and we are not falling that I am aware of."
Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at thecaptain, took a pair of compasses wherewith to measure theangular distance of the terrestrial globe; then from the lowerwindow he took an exact observation, and noticed that theprojectile was apparently stationary. Then rising and wipinghis forehead, on which large drops of perspiration werestanding, he put some figures on paper. Nicholl understood thatthe president was deducting from the terrestrial diameter theprojectile's distance from the earth. He watched him anxiously.
"No," exclaimed Barbicane, after some moments, "no, we are notfalling! no, we are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth.We have passed the point at which the projectile would have stoppedif its speed had only been 12,000 yards at starting. We are stillgoing up."
"That is evident," replied Nicholl; "and we must conclude thatour initial speed, under the power of the 400,000 pounds ofgun-cotton, must have exceeded the required 12,000 yards.Now I can understand how, after thirteen minutes only, we met thesecond satellite, which gravitates round the earth at more than2,000 leagues' distance."
"And this explanation is the more probable," added Barbicane,"Because, in throwing off the water enclosed between itspartition-breaks, the projectile found itself lightened of aconsiderable weight."
"Just so," said Nicholl.
"Ah, my brave Nicholl, we are saved!"
"Very well then," said Michel Ardan quietly; "as we are safe,let us have breakfast."
Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had been, veryfortunately, much above that estimated by the CambridgeObservatory; but the Cambridge Observatory had nevertheless madea mistake.
The travelers, recovered from this false alarm, breakfasted merrily.If they ate a good deal, they talked more. Their confidence wasgreater after than before "the incident of the algebra."
"Why should we not succeed?" said Michel Ardan; "why should wenot arrive safely? We are launched; we have no obstacle beforeus, no stones in the way; the road is open, more so than that ofa ship battling with the sea; more open than that of a balloonbattling with the wind; and if a ship can reach its destination,a balloon go where it pleases, why cannot our projectile attainits end and aim?"
"It _will_ attain it," said Barbicane.
"If only to do honor to the Americans," added Michel Ardan, "theonly people who could bring such an enterprise to a happy termination,and the only one which could produce a President Barbicane. Ah, nowwe are no longer uneasy, I begin to think, What will become of us?We shall get right royally weary."
Barbicane and Nicholl made a gesture of denial.
"But I have provided for the contingency, my friends," repliedMichel; "you have only to speak, and I have chess, draughts,cards, and dominoes at your disposal; nothing is wanting but abilliard-table."
"What!" exclaimed Barbicane; "you brought away such trifles?"
"Certainly," replied Michel, "and not only to distractourselves, but also with the laudable intention of endowing theSelenite smoking divans with them."
"My friend," said Barbicane, "if the moon is inhabited, itsinhabitants must have appeared some thousands of years beforethose of the earth, for we cannot doubt that their star is mucholder than ours. If then these Selenites have existed theirhundreds of thousands of years, and if their brain is of the sameorganization of the human brain, they have already invented allthat we have invented, and even what we may invent in future ages.They have nothing to learn from _us_, and we have everything tolearn from _them_."
"What!" said Michel; "you believe that they have artists likePhidias, Michael Angelo, or Raphael?"
"Yes."
"Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?"
"I am sure of it."
"Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant?"
"I have no doubt of it."
"Scientific men like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, Newton?"
"I could swear it."
"Comic writers like Arnal, and photographers like-- like Nadar?"
"Certain."
"Then, friend Barbicane, if they are as strong as we are, andeven stronger-- these Selenites-- why have they not tried tocommunicate with the earth? why have they not launched a lunarprojectile to our terrestrial regions?"
"Who told you that they have never done so?" said Barbicane seriously.
"Indeed," added Nicholl, "it would be easier for them than forus, for two reasons; first, because the attraction on the moon'ssurface is six times less than on that of the earth, which wouldallow a projectile to rise more easily; secondly, because itwould be enough to send such a projectile only at 8,000 leaguesinstead of 80,000, which would require the force of projectionto be ten times less strong."
"Then," continued Michel, "I repeat it, why have they not done it?"
"And I repeat," said Barbicane; "who told you that they have notdone it?"
"When?"
"Thousands of years before man appeared on earth."
"And the projectile-- where is the projectile? I demand to seethe projectile."
"My friend," replied Barbicane, "the sea covers five-sixths ofour globe. From that we may draw five good reasons forsupposing that the lunar projectile, if ever launched, is now atthe bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific, unless it sped intosome crevasse at that period when the crust of the earth was notyet hardened."
"Old Barbicane," said Michel, "you have an answer foreverything, and I bow before your wisdom. But there is onehypothesis that would suit me better than all the others, whichis, the Selenites, being older than we, are wiser, and have notinvented gunpowder."
At this moment Diana joined in the conversation by a sonorous barking.She was asking for her breakfast.
"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "in our discussion we have forgottenDiana and Satellite."
Immediately a good-sized pie was given to the dog, whichdevoured it hungrily.
"Do you see, Barbicane," said Michel, "we should have made asecond Noah's ark of this projectile, and borne with us to themoon a couple of every kind of domestic animal."
"I dare say; but room would have failed us."
"Oh!" said Michel, "we might have squeezed a little."
"The fact is," replied Nicholl, "that cows, bulls, and horses,and all ruminants, would have been very useful on the lunarcontinent, but unfortunately the car could neither have beenmade a stable nor a shed."
"Well, we might have at least brought a donkey, only a littledonkey; that courageous beast which old Silenus loved to mount.I love those old donkeys; they are the least favored animals increation; they are not only beaten while alive, but even afterthey are dead."
"How do you make that out?" asked Barbicane. "Why," saidMichel, "they make their skins into drums."
Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this ridiculous remark.But a cry from their
merry companion stopped them. The latter wasleaning over the spot where Satellite lay. He rose, saying:
"My good Satellite is no longer ill."
"Ah!" said Nicholl.
"No," answered Michel, "he is dead! There," added he, in apiteous tone, "that is embarrassing. I much fear, my poorDiana, that you will leave no progeny in the lunar regions!"
Indeed the unfortunate Satellite had not survived its wound.It was quite dead. Michel Ardan looked at his friends with arueful countenance.
"One question presents itself," said Barbicane. "We cannot keepthe dead body of this dog with us for the next forty-eight hours."
"No! certainly not," replied Nicholl; "but our scuttles arefixed on hinges; they can be let down. We will open one, andthrow the body out into space."
The president thought for some moments, and then said:
"Yes, we must do so, but at the same time taking very great precautions."
"Why?" asked Michel.
"For two reasons which you will understand," answered Barbicane."The first relates to the air shut up in the projectile, and ofwhich we must lose as little as possible."
"But we manufacture the air?"
"Only in part. We make only the oxygen, my worthy Michel; andwith regard to that, we must watch that the apparatus does notfurnish the oxygen in too great a quantity; for an excess wouldbring us very serious physiological troubles. But if we makethe oxygen, we do not make the azote, that medium which thelungs do not absorb, and which ought to remain intact; and thatazote will escape rapidly through the open scuttles."
"Oh! the time for throwing out poor Satellite?" said Michel.
"Agreed; but we must act quickly."
"And the second reason?" asked Michel.
"The second reason is that we must not let the outer cold, whichis excessive, penetrate the projectile or we shall be frozen to death."
"But the sun?"
"The sun warms our projectile, which absorbs its rays; but itdoes not warm the vacuum in which we are floating at this moment.Where there is no air, there is no more heat than diffused light;and the same with darkness; it is cold where the sun's rays do notstrike direct. This temperature is only the temperature producedby the radiation of the stars; that is to say, what theterrestrial globe would undergo if the sun disappeared one day."
"Which is not to be feared," replied Nicholl.
"Who knows?" said Michel Ardan. "But, in admitting that the sundoes not go out, might it not happen that the earth might moveaway from it?"
"There!" said Barbicane, "there is Michel with his ideas."
"And," continued Michel, "do we not know that in 1861 the earthpassed through the tail of a comet? Or let us suppose a cometwhose power of attraction is greater than that of the sun.The terrestrial orbit will bend toward the wandering star, andthe earth, becoming its satellite, will be drawn such a distancethat the rays of the sun will have no action on its surface."
"That _might_ happen, indeed," replied Barbicane, "but theconsequences of such a displacement need not be so formidable asyou suppose."
"And why not?"
"Because the heat and cold would be equalized on our globe.It has been calculated that, had our earth been carried along inits course by the comet of 1861, at its perihelion, that is, itsnearest approach to the sun, it would have undergone a heat28,000 times greater than that of summer. But this heat, whichis sufficient to evaporate the waters, would have formed a thickring of cloud, which would have modified that excessivetemperature; hence the compensation between the cold of theaphelion and the heat of the perihelion."
"At how many degrees," asked Nicholl, "is the temperature of theplanetary spaces estimated?"
"Formerly," replied Barbicane, "it was greatly exagerated; butnow, after the calculations of Fourier, of the French Academy ofScience, it is not supposed to exceed
[email protected] Centigrade below zero."
"Pooh!" said Michel, "that's nothing!"
"It is very much," replied Barbicane; "the temperature which wasobserved in the polar regions, at Melville Island and FortReliance, that is
[email protected] Fahrenheit below zero."
"If I mistake not," said Nicholl, "M. Pouillet, another savant,estimates the temperature of space at
[email protected] Fahrenheit below zero.We shall, however, be able to verify these calculations for ourselves."
"Not at present; because the solar rays, beating directlyupon our thermometer, would give, on the contrary, a very hightemperature. But, when we arrive in the moon, during itsfifteen days of night at either face, we shall have leisure tomake the experiment, for our satellite lies in a vacuum."
"What do you mean by a vacuum?" asked Michel. "Is it perfectly such?"
"It is absolutely void of air."
"And is the air replaced by nothing whatever?"
"By the ether only," replied Barbicane.
"And pray what is the ether?"
"The ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderableatoms, which, relatively to their dimensions, are as far removedfrom each other as the celestial bodies are in space. It isthese atoms which, by their vibratory motion, produce both lightand heat in the universe."
They now proceeded to the burial of Satellite. They had merelyto drop him into space, in the same way that sailors drop a bodyinto the sea; but, as President Barbicane suggested, they mustact quickly, so as to lose as little as possible of that airwhose elasticity would rapidly have spread it into space.The bolts of the right scuttle, the opening of which measuredabout twelve inches across, were carefully drawn, while Michel,quite grieved, prepared to launch his dog into space. The glass,raised by a powerful lever, which enabled it to overcome thepressure of the inside air on the walls of the projectile,turned rapidly on its hinges, and Satellite was thrown out.Scarcely a particle of air could have escaped, and the operationwas so successful that later on Barbicane did not fear todispose of the rubbish which encumbered the car.